BEST PLACES TO WORK

Sum up your agency’s approach to staff welfare and wellbeing in less than 10 words.

"Our team is at the heart of everything we do."

Please describe your current office location and facilities.

Fashionable attic space in London’s West End plays host to the Eulogy! team. Our branded offices provide comfortable workspace for some of PR’s most creative minds.

Sofa rooms and snugs for creativity, boardrooms for strategising, as well as a bar and kitchen mean the team is well served. The Eulogy! flag takes pride of place in the open-plan office, where our MD sits alongside the team.

Fresh flowers adorn reception. We have a sound system, TVs and wireless technology for seamless in-office networking. A weekly delivery of fresh fruit and drinks keeps the team happy, and a recycling scheme keeps the office green and clean.

Please give details of your staff training programme.

Eulogy! has worked with Richard Baines, formerly of Argyll HR and now the Amber Group for eight years, showing our continued commitment to our staff. Richard provides one-to-one training and coaching, and group training sessions.

Eulogy! has a dedicated in-house training academy, devised and run by the agency’s senior management groups. These sessions take place within working hours at Eulogy!’s office and are available on a regular basis to staff at all levels.

Please give details of your staff appraisal programme including: how often staff are appraised both formally and informally; how goals are set; and how performance is measured.

We implement a line manager system at Eulogy! to manage the appraisal process. Every six months line managers conduct appraisals for those they manage, setting quarterly goals for development. The line manager also holds an interim meeting with them after the first quarter to discuss progress, and ad hoc informal meetings take place over coffee and out of the office as many times as required.

Our appraisal process follows a ‘360°’ approach that takes feedback from a range of levels across the agency, to give a fully rounded review of staff members. The appraisal form also captures information about the individual’s performance aligned with their job description and job competency criteria, and it’s against this that the individual is measured. Every appraisal is concluded by setting new objectives and goals based on what the individual needs to achieve.

Please give details of your flexible working policy including maternity and paternity packages.

Our flexible working policy adapts to individual needs. Eulogy!’s maternity and paternity leave follows standard guidelines but is tailored to personal circumstances and service. For example, full pay may be extended into the maternity leave period. Returns to work after a period of absence (be that with pregnancy or illness) are always treated with compassion and flexibility.

Please describe any industry or networking events you hold at your offices such as thought leadership sessions, breakfast/drinks events etc.

Eulogy! plays host to all manner of events, including client seminars, breakfast briefings, informal drinks and before-parties to glamorous industry events. And of course there are our Learn & Burns (see the internal training section). We also invite key industry spokespeople, for example experts in digital marketing or data, to the agency for speaking and networking opportunities.

Our leading position in media and marketing services, combined with our great consumer credentials, means we are well placed to bring together leading trade bodies (for example The Marketing Society, NRS, ABC, APA) and marketing individuals (for example, from Royal Mail, Moneysupermarket, Santander and Comedy Central) for debate, opportunities and sector insight, and for informal occasions, too.

How do you reward staff at Christmas?

Even in 2009, at the height of the recession, Eulogy! took its’ team away at Christmas. And we have done so every year for the last 10 years. As we said, we put the team at the heart of every thing we do.

We’ve flown to Dublin, Stockholm and Paris, taken over a castle in Scotland and a hotel in Sandwich, just last year in fact.

The 2009 Christmas party took place in a grand hotel in deepest Kent. It was fancy-dress - come as something beginning with ‘E’. We had elks, Elvis, eggs, exercise, Egyptians, emperors and festively, elves…

After a delicious three-course meal we retired to the ‘presentation suite’ for the Eulogy! Awards, celebrating the brilliance and embarrassment of agency life. Remembering all the good times and laughing at the bad, brings us together as a team creating great morale before the festive break.

What staff say.

I’ve been at Eulogy! for four years and have witnessed its incredible growth and success. We’ve been able to keep true to our roots and beliefs but also expand into new markets and work with truly amazing brands - something we are all very proud of.

We work very hard to produce fantastic results for our clients, but the real difference at Eulogy! is how much we work as a team. Everyone supports each other and celebrates every great piece of coverage, client win and milestone.

Coupled with the early finishes every first Friday, weekly trips to the pub and legendary Christmas parties, it’s this mix of dedication and reward that really makes Eulogy! stand out as a brilliant place to spend my Monday to Fridays.

Elaine Birch, account manager.